A Mother’s Loss

This past Mother’s Day was hard as it always is for me; but this year it was sadder since my Aunt just buried her son and a childhood friend had to bury her son as well. I was hoping to get a ‘Happy Mother’s Day’ from my only Goddaughter – but I didn’t. I get it…I am not a mother, I am childless, barren. I have always quietly stood by and understood that no one in my immediate family sees me as a mother – ever. My own mother many years ago, said to me that “real women have children”. The pain I still carry from that one thoughtless, careless, insensitive remark – still hurts but also makes me strong and forgiving. I learned I could not have children when I was 26 years old going on 27 due to my first bout with cancer – the year I lost my brother, the year I impulsively got married and annulled same marriage, the year I learned that I would forever be seen as selfish to my Mother who could never understand me nor my life. I used to go to Mass with my Mother often, but I stopped going with her on Mother’s day. The priest would ask all the mothers to stand. On my immediate right, my mother would stand and on my immediate left, someone’s mother would stand. I would just sit there. I don’t know how others saw me, but I felt dehumanized, gutted as a woman. Yes, my mother’s remark rang true – Real women stood, empty shells sat. I do not normally feel this way. I did not like feeling this way. I will never allow myself to feel this way again. I believe we can honor mothers without alienating others, including myself. I believe there is a mother in all of us – we are nurturing and mothering in many ways to many people and pets. There are mothers who carry their love for their unborn children in their hearts as I do each and every day. I am a proud Mommy of 4-legged baby with paws. My dogs will always be my heart as well.

For the one who has lost a mother…
For the one who has lost a child…
For the one who longs to be a mom…
Always in my prayers. ♥

When I first heard the movie title “Return to Zero” I thought this was a movie about the terrorists attacks on 9/11 – which haunts me forever and I was not going to watch. When I realized that it was a movie based on the book “Three Minus One” – I knew I had to watch.

“Return to Zero” is about a couple torn apart by the stillbirth of their first child and get a second chance at parenthood; Minnie Driver and Paul Adelstein star. It’s a Lifetime movie. Get the tissues ready! There is a song that Minnie Driver sings, she co-wrote with Paul Adelstein and he’s playing the piano on it. I mist find and buy it on iTunes. It’s hauntingly true…

I resonate with so many things said and felt in this movie…loss, hurt … “it’s not just the loss of the baby, but it’s the loss of a possibility of what might have been”…

“I lost a part of myself that day, and I will never get it back…there is life after this, I promise you that.”

“Because of what you have been through…you will forever be available to a child, appreciate that child better than most parents ever can and that truly is a gift.”

“I am thankful that today I can see life for what it really is, to know that just beneath the surface, just under the radar is death. Every day we wake up and we run from it as fast as we can, and its coming – maybe not today, maybe not next week…when it does, all this – doesn’t matter…so today, I am not grateful for life, I am giving thanks to death…”